Microsoft lands huge cloud customer in India

The All India Council for Technical Education has decided to adopt Microsoft's Live@edu cloud service, and will deploy it to over seven million students and nearly 500,000 staff members in the coming months.

The deal makes the Indian government agency Redmond's biggest cloud customer, and grows the software giant's hold over the education space.

In a joint statement on Thursday, Microsoft said that the cloud deployment would provide students with access to "high-quality" technical education and collaboration. Live@edu is a hosted communication and collaboration service that offers email services, Microsoft Office Web Apps, instant messaging and storage.

The rollout is scheduled to take place over the next three months and be completed by September, and the service will be made available to more than 10,000 technical colleges and institutes throughout India. The AICTE also plans to deploy Office 365 when it becomes available in the country later this year, which will provide access to Exchange Online email and calendar, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, and Office Professional to augment the existing technical infrastructure, it noted.

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Microsoft lands largest cloud customer in India govt on ZDNet Asia.